The Ghosts in CBS' "Ghosts" Ranked

1. Pete
2. Thorfinn
3. Hetty
4. Isaac
5. Sassapis
6. Trevor
7. Alberta
8. Flower
9. Nigel

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3"

1. We still cannot wrap our heads around the fact that Bradley Cooper is the voice of Rocket Raccoon.  We can't hear anything of Cooper's usual voice in that character.
2. These Guardian movies are chock full of humor (like the lengthy confusion over which button opens which communication channel among the Guardian's spacesuits), so we're very curious to see what writer-director James Gunn does with the DC franchise now that he's in charge and developing a new Superman project.  At this point, worn down by the unrelenting grimness of the Chris Nolan Batman movies and Zach Snyder Superman movies, we cannot imagine those characters with any sort of light touch.
3. Pleasant surprises to get both Spacehog's "In the Meantime" and Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" on the soundtrack.  Great songs.
4. Seems logical that being called a "bad dog" truly is the ultimate canine insult.
5. How the movie resolves the Peter-Gamora relationship (remember that this is the Gamora who has no memory of her romance with Peter because of the events of Avengers: Endgame all the way back in 2019) was a surprise, but completely plausible.
6. It gets pretty dark.
7. All of those recent think pieces about the death of the superhero movie may have been premature given Volume 3's $700 worldwide million gross to date.  Then again, this cast of oddball characters are uniquely endearing compared to the usual slam-bang CGI superhero epic.
8. The production design of the deeply weird, half organic Orgocorp headquarters - including the wild costumes of Orgocorp's employees - is fantastic.  Critics like to say "you've never seen anything like it" but in this case it's true.
9. "Kill one stupid guy that no one loves."
10. You may have heard there's some unexpected pathos from a subplot involving Rocket-like test animals.  Plenty of films with all-human, live-action casts wish they could create that kind of emotion.  We're not crying, you're crying.
11. It may not be as good as the first one from 2014 simply because that movie was such an unexpected joy, but it's definitely stronger than Volume 2 in 2017.

Tweet

A Few Words About Season Three of Paramount+'s "Picard"

 * It's of course 100% fantastic to see the "Next Generation" cast back in action, spouting technobabble, working together, debating big ideas around a conference table.
* But boy do they all look old.  Have we gotten that old, too?  Yikes. Gray hair and wrinkles galore or, in some cases, startling cosmetic surgery.
* Without question, the best character in this go-round is Worf.  Genius.
* The writers always seemed far more interested than us in Data's complicated backstory (ugh, again we have to endure a subplot with Lore), the unending kill-him-no-wait-bring-him-back cycle, and making Brent Spiner play either his creator or one of his creator's relatives.  But while it's good to have Data back doing his Data thing, it's little hilarious to see an android with the puffy features of a 60-something.
* Sorry, we know everyone is very invested in helping Jack Crusher and saving him, but we had a hard time caring about his grating, whiny character.  
* We won't spoil the show's many twists, but suffice to say that some worked better than others. Indeed, some are quite inspired.  In so many ways, the show plays like a "Next Generation" greatest hits package.
* Amanda Plummer will always be Honey Bunny to us.
* We get the need to tell one long serialized story to create high enough stakes to justify getting the band back together, but after we got a delicious taste of one-off, mostly self-contained episodes of "Strange New Worlds" we're definitely getting tired of stories stretched across multiple episodes no matter if it makes story sense or not.
* Big 1990s crush on Michelle Forbes' Ensign Ro.
* Todd Stashwick steals every scene as the Titan's ascerbic Captain Shaw.  So it got a little annoying when our "Next Generation" heroes started having big meetings on Shaw's ship with him nowhere in sight.  Shouldn't Shaw at least be invited?
* A fellow hardcore Star Trek fan watched all of the seasons during the COVID lockdown and declared that "Deep Space Nine" was the best one.  We really should go back and watch it.  We gave up midway through the first season way back when.  There's a fairly significant "Deep Space Nine" tie-in here.
* Guess they couldn't find a way to fit in Chief O'Brien and Keiko.
* We never liked Lieutenant Shelby.  What a tool.
* Weirdly, the climax had some big Return of the Jedi vibes.  We're not sure if that's a good thing or not.
* Who wouldn't want to visit the Starfleet Museum?
* "Make it so."

Here are our thoughts from 2020 about the first season of "Picard."  We missed season two, but may circle back and take a look.  We'll keep you posted.

Tweet